Learning why!!!

From the time I was in second grade, I remember being on a diet. My parents, bless their hearts did everything the could to help me lose weight. Weight watchers, walking, sports, special diet food, doctor visits. They tried. They did whatever the new diet fad was WITH me. Now, as a parent, I completely understand their desire to help me. I never want my children to suffer with their weight. I would do exactly what they did. But, none of that worked. Sure, I would lose a couple pounds, but then it would stop working. I would walk more, and nothing happened. Finally, at the age of 18, my parents dragged me, and I do mean DRAGGED me into Nutrisystem. Back then, it was a facility that you went to every week to weigh in, attend a class, and buy food. The deal with my parents was that if I lost weight, they would pay for my food. If I didn't, I had to pay for it. But I HAD to stay in the program. I lost weight the first week, and the second week...I was hooked. In less than a year, I had lost 50 pounds. It was a huge success that changed my life at the time! The problem, however, is that I started to gain weight as soon as I left the program. I lived on salads without dressing, and dieted constantly, but it didn't work. My mom said it was watching a balloon blow up. There was nothing we could do to stop the process. I met my husband during that time of my life, and it wasn't till after we were married that we discovered WHY I gained that weight back and had always had a problem. After we got married, I expected to have children right away. It was a surprise that I didn't come home from my honeymoon pregnant! After several months of trying, I went to an ob/gyn for help. He listened to my story and declared that I have PCOS. My mother and I sat and stared at him in silence. What is that, exactly? Well, it causes missed periods, excess facial hair, excess thigh hair, weight gain, inability to lose weight, and infertility. My mom started crying. All my life she had taken me to doctors trying to get someone to help me, and here was a doctor saying there WAS a problem, without a doubt. All my childhood doctors had told me (or my mom) to stop eating, exercise more, and not worry about the missed periods. We went to a gynecologist one time and asked her to help with the constant missed periods. She said that if I wanted to get pregnant right now, I could. Nothing was wrong with me. She missed the diagnosis, they all did. I believe they missed it because they didn't take the time to look past my fat body to see what was really going on inside. They prejudged me, assumed I was a closet eater, and just a lazy fat person with no control. That was NOT me. I did everything right. Eventually, I gave up. I just gave up. I stopped trying to lose weight, to be healthy. Then I reallly packed it on. PCOS is a deadly disease. PCOS won't kill you, but the things that PCOS causes will. Obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes....the list is lengthy. PCOS causes a coating around the ovaries to make it impossible for your female organs to do what they are supposed to do. The progesterone levels are very low, almost non-existent; however, estrogen levels are very high. And estrogen feeds on fat, and fat feeds on estrogen...thus the obesity issue. How do you overcome PCOS? Can you??? Check my next blog on overcoming PCOS.